


Before the Den became Home

by AliaMael



Series: Lonely to family [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Ableism, Character(s) of Color, Disabled Character, Disabled Character of Color, Gen, I swear this is building up to Fluff, Naga, Racism, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:02:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26681872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliaMael/pseuds/AliaMael
Summary: How a banal building became the Monster's Den. Or, alternatively, how a man wary of everything built his own home.
Series: Lonely to family [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1941511
Kudos: 5
Collections: La Tanière du Monstre / The Monster's Den





	Before the Den became Home

Before Saule came along, the building hosted a bowling. It didn't have a name, it was just the town's bowling.

It had been closed for months when the young man –too young to buy that kind of thing, the realtor visibly thought– visited for the first time. The bowling's owner had been way older, and his predecessor had shared both age and overall attitude of classical serious. Saule was not classical. He had long bright green hair and didn't bother with formal clothing. It was difficult to say what the realtor disliked most about him: what he perceived as impolite eccentricity, the light brown of Saule's skin, or his wheelchair.

On the other hand, Saule was dead serious. He negotiated the terms of the sale with steel in his voice, and a tension in his shoulders he never let the realtor see. Then he was the new owner, and for the first time in years the building got a name.

The Monster's Den.

For weeks, a flurry of activity transformed the place. The bowling lanes disappeared in favor of a large dance floor. The basic bar was renovated to professional standards. The room on the upper floor, which had sometimes been rented to groups by the bowling owner, became a private flat, with accommodations for Saule's disability.

Only the sound system and soundproofing were still unfinished when Saule came to live in the Den. In the safety on his new home, he let pretenses fall; doubt and tiredness were obvious in his eyes, and the wheelchair was left next to the front door.

As much as his legs would not support him, his tail did a perfect job of it. Serpentine, long, powerful, it was fully functional where his human legs failed him, to his unending anger and shame.

Apparently, nagas were supposed to have perfect shapeshifting between their natural form and a human body. Saule couldn't manage it. His hair stayed the same color as his scales, unnatural for a human. He couldn't get his slitted pupils to become round. Most of all, his legs were normally shaped but lacked the strength necessary to let him walk unassisted. He had crutches he used on occasion, but it was obvious it was too tiring to last a whole day, hence the wheelchair.

He hated it with the intensity of someone who had been taught to hate themselves.

But despite the fact he couldn't accept himself fully, he had a determination that would be obvious to any observer (if he let anyone observe him). Where some people would have bought the place and then let someone else do the hard work of running it, Saule did all he could by himself. Management, accountability, directing the renovation, looking for bands to come play live… he did all of these with a cold efficiency.

But there were some things he'd need to hire people for. Each person coming into what was now his territory for an interview was making him tense, and maybe he was a bit too harsh on some, but on the other hand some were a bit too harsh on him too. (He had been extremely close to coming to blows with the one refusing to believe he could be the owner and ordering him to call the real manager.)

But after a series of tense interviews, he finally found his bartenders.

He had not expected Sally and Thalis.

Sally was as human as it got, as far as he could tell. She was also polite and cheerful, kind and no-nonsense. She would be perfect for the job, and if Saule was not exactly at ease around her it was only because she talked and smiled at him with a sincerity he was unused to. She didn't care that he was disabled, only took it into account when the logistics made it necessary, making it look as if she would have dealt the same way with someone too tall to pass a doorway.

Thalis almost managed to get Saule to try and bodily remove him from the building, but only because he had a knack for asking the difficult questions.

Frankly, dropping a casual "you're not human, are you?" after not even two minutes of interview possibly deserved a violent reaction. But then Thalis had smiled and added "don't worry, I won't tell about you if you don't tell about me", and what could Saule do except stare? He didn't ask what Thalis _was_ , Thalis didn't ask him either, and Saule tentatively introduced him to Sally.

They got on like a house on fire.

They got the job, and in the following months they slowly, patiently eroded the walls Saule had erected around himself. In the warmth of the night club, with people he finally trusted enough to be comfortable around, he felt _safe_.

The Den was Home.


End file.
